Life is so much organized with good personal domain name & Google Apps

I recently acquired the domain prashanth.net, there’s no domain left with this name since it’s a very common name in South India. And also blame it on Tamil Star Prashanth So, one & a half year running backorder finally accomplished the domain. Now what!!? Since the domain is really good, I wanted all my stuff to come under it! I started learning jQuery & built a pretty neat home page for prashanth.net. Moved my personal blog to this domain & made the previous domain to redirect here (permanent, wildcard).  These were all initial setup. One of the main reasons for buying this domain was having a nice email ID which stands out!

Google Apps Registration:

There’s no better option than Google Apps account which comes for free (Standard Edition). I registered the domain with Google Apps account & did all initial setup of creating MX records to make email to work.

Email, IM Migration:

Since I wanted a complete shift to this new ID from my Gmail, I wanted to move all my mails for future refernce. I setup the mail fetcher which is available under “Settings–>Accounts–>Get mail from other accounts”. This mail fetcher copied all mails from my gmail ID to new Google Apps account, though it took few days! Similarly moved contacts with Import & Export options which gmail has.  Once email gets activated, it automatically activates IM. You can use Google Talk to connect with all other people who are on Gmail or Google Apps account. I couldn’t tell everyone on my Google Talk about my migration to new personalized ID. I used answer.im to auto respond those who try to contact me on my old gmail ID. Answer.im makes you look online all the time & when somebody pings, it replies with the message you have set.

Docs, Calendar & Custom URL:

Google Apps account also comes with other services from Google, Docs & Calendar. So all these services looks more personalized when you have custom URLs. Setting up custom URLs is very simple, you just need to change it in Google Apps service settings & create appropriate CNAME records on your domain. It might sound a bit geeky, but nothing once you know how to do it. So with Google Apps services & custom URLs, I actually got the following:

Mail: http://mail.prashanth.net

Calendar: http://cal.prashanth.net

Docs: http://docs.prashanth.net

Life looks so simple & organized now! And also gives personalization touch to it! Beleive it or not, I don’t have a office suite installed on my computers. I am a fulltime user of Google Docs! Docs also provides offline access to all your documents on it. All you have to do is enable offline access (requirs Google Gears installed). You can access, modify all your docs even when not connected to internet & all the changes you have made get syncronized when you connect next time.

Syncing with Mobile Phone:

I have Nokia E66, Symbian S60 3rd edition phone. I use System Seven push email service to receive emails in real time. System Seven recently launched syncing contacts & calendar with Gmail/Google Apps. With that my phone’s calendar is always in sync with my online calendar. It doesn’t matter whether I add an event on mobile’s calendar or my google calendar, it gets reflected everywhere.

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Gmail Labs has released a new feature called “Offline Gmail” as announced on official gmail blog. Offline gmail uses Google Gears to download all your emails to system cache when you are connected to network. Offline Gmail keeps syncing the local cache with server when connected. When you are offline, turn browser into “Offline Mode” by going to “File–>Work Offline” & visit gmail.com as usual. All the emails will be accessible as usual.

To enable this feature goto “Settings–>Labs” & enable “Offline Gmail”. You might have also required to install Google Gears to get this functioning. This feature is not yet released to all accounts yet, but will be releasing soon. Keep looking at your Setings page.

One of the India’s free SMS messaging website way2sms.com has announced to release free SMS alerts for emails. Way2SMS sent me an email announcement about this new service. It’s basically a new email service from way2sms which also allows reading emails from gmail & yahoo mail & get alerts via SMS. Here is the complete description of the service:

Way2SMS Now offers Free Email. Get yourname@way2sms.com.

You deserve the best. Way2SMS Mail delivers..

* Top quality Spam filters blocks spam before it gets into your inbox.
* Search your mails instantly
* Auto display of contacts while composing your mail
* Saves every outgoing mail contact automatically.
* Folders and colored mails to organize your mails and to mark important mails.
* New email alert notification.
* Import contacts from yahoo, gmail and other accounts.
* Signature – automatically added to the end of all your outgoing messages.

Receive instant free email alerts on your mobile.
Don’t miss important mails just because you’re away from the PC. Get SMS alerts on your mobile phone as and when the new Mail arrives. You’ll receive only alerts for the emails you want, when you want them.

Notify recipient on mobile while sending an email.
Send Mail with SMS alert -More visibility to your emails. Notify recipients on their mobile while sending an email.

Get mail alerts on mobile for your Yahoo & Gmail accounts.
Link your Yahoo, Gmail and other email accounts with Way2SMS mail account. And get instant Free SMS alerts for your Yahoo, Gmail accounts too. Way2SMS delivers an alert on your mobile whenever an email hits your gmail or yahoo inbox. You can link your other mail accounts too.

Chat right inside way2sms with your Yahoo& Gtalk contacts simultaneously.
Way2SMS enables you to chat with your Gtalk and Yahoo contacts simultaneously. Just login with your gmail/yahoo account to start chatting – it’s as easy as that!. Allows you Chat with online friends and SMS to those who are away from computer.

Access Gmail, Yahoo inbox inside way2sms.
Now, check your Yahoo, Gmail inbox right inside way2sms.com. Manage all your mail communication, chats and SMSing from Way2SMS. Send mails to your Yahoo, gmail contacts right from Way2SMS.

Get latest news, cricket scores/updates as RSS feeds.
Never miss anything ! get breaking news and other current happenings when you are on way2sms. We buzz you with the latest news, cricket scores etc.,. We bring all the latest stories from popular sites such as ndtv.com, ibnlive.com,hindustantimes.com, cricbuzz.com etc.

Though this service is not first in India, it’s the first one which will be available for free. SMS alerts for emails is also provided by mobee.in, but they charge for it. I think this service will take way2sms to acquire much better position in Indian internet space.

Way2sms has not yet announced exact date of launch of this service. Keep watching at way2sms for it’s launch.